Browsed byTag: Bart Ehrman

It makes sense that the sect which survived Jesus’ execution would be more likely to leave an early historical trace than Jesus himself, given his relative obscurity in his lifetime. Seeing that this sect seems to have been led initially by his brother James, it also makes sense that we would get early historical references to James. This is why two references to Jesus’ brother, one contemporary and one by a non-Christian historian, represent a crucial flaw in the claim…

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was one of the most reliable of all Roman historians and many first century figures are known to us solely through his mention of them. This means his passing reference to Jesus in Annals XV.44 remains an fly in the ointment of the Jesus Myth hypothesis. Despite Tacitus’ reliability and the scholarly agreement that the reference is genuine, Mythicist ideologues have several ways by which they try to dismiss this reference; all of them characteristically weak. The…

The consensus of scholars, including non-Christian scholars, is that a historical Jesus most likely existed and the later stories about “Jesus Christ” were told about him. The idea that there was no such historical person at all and that “Jesus Christ” was a purely mythical figure has been posited in one form or another since the eighteenth century, but is not taken seriously by anyone but a tiny handful of fringe scholars and amateurs. Despite this, the Jesus Myth thesis…

It seems the “Philosophical Atheism” group on Facebook is going to be the New Atheist bad history gift that just keeps on giving. No anti-Christian snippet or meme seems to be able to get by this group without it being posted as factual, without any hint of checking its claims. So the gloriously stupid (and grammatically bizarre) pastiche of nonsense above was posted to “Philosophical Atheism” yesterday, with the group’s followers reverently genuflecting to its mighty historical truth and insight. The…

As Easter comes around again, it seems the internet will be serving us up two things that we now see every year. The first is brainless memes telling us that Easter was originally “a pagan fertility festival”, that the word Easter is derived from “the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar” and that her sacred symbols were rabbits and eggs. All of which is complete garbage. But lately this annual irritation has been joined by a new Easter tradition – articles dusting off…

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